


not adora

by tooloudamind



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra Has Issues (She-Ra), Catra alone, Catra deals with Adora leaving, Catra is in denial, F/F, It's just Catra, Jealous Catra (She-Ra), POV Catra (She-Ra), She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 1, Sidenote Adora does not actually appear in this, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29498502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tooloudamind/pseuds/tooloudamind
Summary: Catra muses upon She-Ra. Vignette, set in Season 1.
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	not adora

**Author's Note:**

> It is past 12 am where I am, and I'm usually the kind of writer who doesn't write.  
> Perhaps I'll take this down when I come to my senses? idk.  
> I've been obsessed with SPOP since I finished it maybe two weeks ago, and of course I'm three years late to write any S1 fanfic (when do I ever catch something I love when it actually comes out?), and I'm sure there must be zillions of fic out there that dig into Catra's motivations...  
> but since I actually wrote something for once, however lazy an attempt it may be, I couldn't let it go to waste.  
> If you've read this rambling author's note to the end: thank you for bearing with my midnight madness.  
> Edit, 17/02: I've been tweaking some parts of this, but no major changes!

She-Ra. There was something about her that always _got on her nerves_.

It was a mockery of Adora, this thing that had Adora's face, and Adora's voice, and moved and talked and fought like Adora did — after all those years, joined at the hip with Adora ~~and drinking in every moment of it, like a damnedly thirsty flower~~ , how could Catra not be so violently reminded of _her_ in every little thing that She-Ra did?

But She-Ra was not Adora — She-Ra was a Princess — a literal goddess.

She-Ra's very being radiated power and perfection, with the magnificently sculpted muscles, with the piercing blue gleam of the eyes, with the golden, glowing skin, and the floaty masses of golden hair, all of it afire with the same pure energy that emanated from every part of her.

Adora could not have been more different.

Sure, Adora was built well — but Adora also had shortish dirty blonde hair that she would always tie as far back as it would go; and always in the most ridiculous manner possible, with that silly poof of hair she liked so much and the vast expanse of forehead that she always ended up leaving exposed. And Catra could never help but notice that Adora's eyes were baby blue in some lights, but steel grey in others.

She-Ra walked with a grace that Adora had never possessed — like anyone else in the Horde, Adora was an athlete and soldier, an ace one at that, and carried herself with all the cocky self-assuredness of one, but graceful she was _not_. Catra had seen Adora trip over her own feet, seen Adora double over with that dumb snorting laughter of hers, one too many times to be sure of _that_.

~~And Adora never crept around corners, never slunk back into the shadows; never, ever made herself smaller than she really was. Catra knew that she would always take up more space than Shadow Weaver ever thought she deserved, but she also knew how much more she could have been, and could still be, if she just —~~

Adora would know that a good cadet was never, in any circumstance, to fraternise with a Princess ( _especially_ if one was your captor) — much less _become_ one. Adora would not have been caught dead as _She-Ra_. The official Horde ~~propaganda~~ stance had always maintained that the Princesses were too simple-minded and too savage for anything more than brutish warfare — but Princesses, as it turned out, were vile and cunning and shamelessly deceitful, and they would spin up sob stories that were moving enough to entice even the best of cadets to their side. _There's_ an excellent cautionary tale for the new Horde kids, huh?

Perhaps even Adora didn't realise just how different She-Ra was from herself.

~~Perhaps she didn't care.~~

The fact is that Adora had been a good cadet —

and according to Shadow Weaver, she had been the best of them all.

And Catra... would have been okay with that.

She would have been okay with it _all_ , if Adora had just _stayed_.

And in the end, there were no two ways about it. 

(This is where they would have always ended up.)

The ugly truth had been staring her in the face, all along.

If it was just the Horde that hadn't been enough,

despite everything that they had taught her,

despite everything that they had done for her...

...Catra would have understood.

(Catra herself had no love for the Horde, after all.)

The _fact_ is that after all those years,

even _Catra_ hadn't been enough.

Catra hadn't been _enough_

for Adora to _want_ to stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm glad you made it this far.
> 
> Edit: The strikethroughs weren't there before, and I still feel like I'm treading uncharted waters with those. I see (most of) it as Catra trying to compartmentalize these two aspects of the girl she thought she knew: the perfect She-Ra and the imperfect Adora. (She's always thought Adora was too much of a perfect goody-two-shoes, before She-Ra, but now she's desperately trying to make sense of it all and recall all of the things that had endeared Adora to her — in Catra's head, those have to be the imperfections as Adora's good points were always a point of the grief between Catra and Shadow Weaver.)


End file.
